Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the rule and the underlying legislation, the bipartisan Budget Act of 2013. I had the privilege of sitting as one of the budget conferees, and it was an interesting process but a productive one. This is the first time in a long time we have had a genuine compromise in this body and, frankly, between this body and the administration and between this body and the other Chamber. I particularly want to praise Chairman Ryan and Chairman Murray, who worked together in good faith and who worked together well, neither one of whom violated their core principles but both of whom came together and did some pretty extraordinary things in what is a modest bill. First of all, they actually added to the deficit reduction over the window. Literally, we will have a somewhat smaller deficit and debt because of what they did than if we keep the current situation. Secondly, they did something we all know needs to be done in that they dealt a little bit with mandatory spending, and they redistributed those savings over to the discretionary side of the budget. It was because they were able to do that that we are probably going to be able to protect our military from what would have been really devastating cuts under the sequester. That is a pretty amazing achievement. The achievement, to me, that is the most impressive of all is that they managed to find a compromise that will restore regular order.…”